The Waters of Zanarkand
by darkcyan
Summary: [One Shot] [Post-Game] "The one thing he remembered most clearly about Zanarkand was the water." Tidus' musings on water and blitzball, on Zanarkand and Spira, on Yuna and life.


Okay … big spoilers here. All of both FFX and X-2 are fair game. Having seen the perfect ending of X-2 is helpful, but not absolutely necessary – all you really need to know is, well … what's obvious simply from the fact that this is a post-X-2 fic with Tidus narrating.

Umm … if you despise T/Y, beware. It's not overtly a romance fic, but Tidus was flat-out determined to wax lyrical about Yuna at times. If you hate blitzball … well, Tidus is kinda obsessed with that, too. What can I say?

Aside from that … Final Fantasy X and X-2 belong to Sqeenix, long may they continue to produce more beautiful games. I own a copy of each and a copy of the soundtrack to X, but that's it.

- - -  
**The Waters of Zanarkand  
**- - -

The water pooled around him, and the silence with it. A silence not of noise, but of the mind and spirit; peace with the surroundings and the water. And what noise there was – an indistinct hum somewhere, that also seemed to surround him, lulling in its consistency; the murmur of voices, sounding far away – instead of breaking the silence it served only to deepen it, make it more real.

This was perhaps the one time – the one place – he was able to relax and just _be_. Here it didn't matter that he had once been the star player of the Zanarkand Abes; it didn't matter that even that had been only following in his father's footsteps. His hatred of his father didn't matter, nor did the fact – admitted only reluctantly to himself and kept entirely hidden from his friends – that the hatred had only, had always been primarily just a shield to keep him from feeling the pain of loss. The pain, even when his father had still been alive to him, of knowing that he wasn't – that he could never be – quite good enough.

It didn't matter that now he was the star player of the Besaid Aurochs or that he was finally beginning to find his own path, distinct from his father's.

All that mattered was the water as it flowed gently around him; lapped quietly against his chest and arms. The exquisite feel as it ran down his face in tracks that occasionally resembled tears. Here, in this time, in this place, the water became his world, as the outside world drifted away, as real and indistinct as a half-forgotten dream.

The hum grew in his senses, becoming a rumble and then a roar. No longer was it the comforting hum of machinery that he heard, as he sat here, but the roar of water as it was pumped into the sphere by a multitude of hoses. Yet the sound held at its roots a comforting familiarity.

Poised on the cusp between contemplation and action, he paused, enjoying, as he always did, the thrill of walking the edge, even if an edge only found in his mind. Toppling off that edge, his eyes snapped open and he stood, knowing that elsewhere in the dome, there were eleven others in his position. As he stepped out, stepped up, the water drained to his ankles, then disappeared completely, leaving only patches of damp in their wake.

Yet although the water no longer surrounded him, the peace of it still flowed through him, as it always did. It was with the tranquility of the water that he raised his head; as he made that mental adjustment that he always required, because in Zanarkand, it had always been night. The sun bathed him as he acknowledged the cheering of the crowd with a briefly raised hand, but it was the water that pooled within him that called as he dove into the sphere. Like calling to like, a siren call he had never been able to refuse.

The one thing he remembered most clearly about Zanarkand was the water. Even after the rest of it faded in the face of the clear sunshine that was his new life, the sunshine that was Spira, he thought he'd always remember the water.

Yuna had always been fascinated by his Zanarkand. The others as well – oh, they had hid it better, perhaps, but that didn't mean their fascination wasn't there. The city of lights, it was called, the city that never slept, always some light burning, keeping the dark at bay. How to explain that despite all the lights, even during the day, the city had always been dark? Perhaps it had just been him, hidden in the shadow of his father's presence, even after his father was long gone. But to him, when he remembered the lights, he remembered only the way they reflected off the water. How they had seemed cleaner, brighter, from that reflection.

Spira was his light. Chasing away the memories of Zanarkand, he would always remember his first sight of Besaid, the bright white beach and the trees and the blue skies that felt like they would go on forever, all illuminated by the fierce light of the sun. Spira has its own share of shadows – darker, certainly, than those of his Zanarkand, that forgotten dream – yet that, too, he could see as a testament to the quality of the light.

He remembered wishing to return to Zanarkand, return to the peace of the life he had known. The certainty of that life, where he knew who he was – even if that was only Jecht's son – and the measure of his life – even if that was only to follow in his father's footsteps, knowing that no matter how good he became, the memory of his father would always be better. How idyllic those first days in Besaid had been, how free he had been, weighed down by homesickness though he had been, before he found that here, too, his father had come before him.

But that was past. His father had been here, and he had followed Jecht's footsteps a while longer. But his father had never played for the Aurochs – nor played blitzball here, period. Jecht had not been able to defeat Sin. In killing Jecht – and it _had_ been hard, harder than he'd ever imagined when he'd gone off on those fantasies of vengeance – he had not just freed his father of the weight, the awful pain of being Sin. He had also freed himself, to forge his own path free of his father.

He deftly caught a pass tossed his way by Datto, the older Auroch knowing he stood no chance of scoring himself, not against this particular team. Flowing through the water with what had been called by some 'an innate grace', his eyes met Nimrook's briefly. Unhindered by the other team's defenders, this was a clear shot – a rarity, in games against the Al Bhed. Both smiled fiercely – freely – experiencing that one moment of clarity and truth and knowledge and all-encompassing love of the game, those feelings that were always with both of them but surfaced twice as strongly in the acknowledgment of their similarity – as he shot the ball toward the goal.

'_Catch it if you can.'_ The challenge ran. '_Just watch me.' _The response. But he never did, for that would ruin the charm. Flipping again, he swam back towards the center, eyes closed for a moment as he waited. Waited for the smack of plastic on flesh that marked Nimrook's deflection of the ball. Perhaps he should have expending the extra energy on a Jecht Shot – but there would have been no way for Nimrook to deflect that, not with a clear shot for the goal, not as close as he'd been. And he was long past the point of grasping greedily for the easy win.

When he took the time to think back on Zanarkand, when he spared the energy to miss it, it was always the water he missed. Those great arching pillars of water, suspended in the air for no reason other than just to show they could, a testament to the possibility of the impossible. The lights of Zanarkand at night, shining on the darkened lake that flowed in and around the city. His boathouse, and the view from his window as he sat on his bed late at night, unable to sleep for whatever reason – and then, there had been many.

Here in Spira he could sleep. And in the day there was light, and cloudless blue skies – Zanarkand had often been cloudy, but it had never rained. In the city of lights, he had hardly ever seen the sun. It had made those occasional sunrises and sunsets all the more precious, but there was still no comparison. At night, here, perhaps he could no longer see the lights of Zanarkand, but as the moon and the stars reflected off the dark water, they cast a somewhat gentler glow.

Another pass successfully caught; this time some minor negotiation was necessary to cut off a potential obstacle, but in the end the situation was the same – himself, Nimrook, and a clear expanse of water between them. Another smile, another moment shared, another shot, and as he swam away, listening, this time a chime and that strange sliding noise that he had never quite grown accustomed to, as the score shifted. '_Better luck next time.'_ Might be said, if theirs had been an understanding that involved words. And '_You better believe it.'_ the reply, each as certain of their superiority as the other.

The Al Bhed must be off their game today … he never got such clear shots, not two of them in a single game and certainly not in such quick succession.

Wakka had the makings of a good blitz player, but he would never be a great one – never anywhere close to his league. Wakka – like many Spirans, he was coming to find out – had never quite learned that trick of thinking only of the blitz. He had the potential to be great, but it was wasted as he mourned his brother (to be fair, even he would have had a hard time overcoming that one), or worried about Lulu and young Vidina and even tinier Arreya, or occupied himself with thoughts of the pilgrimage (both his first and last) or any number of other things. That first game against the Al Bhed Psyches, back on their pilgrimage, it seemed so many years ago? Case in point.

Wakka had been right to have those concerns; objectively each and every one was probably more important than just a game … but he had never quite figured out that, when one blitzed, they didn't matter. They _couldn't_ matter. If you let anything matter to you other than the blitz … you lost. There would be time, later, to worry about all those worries that never quite disappeared.

He remembered talking to Yuna, after those games. Waving his arms around as he tried to explain what it was about blitz – the first person he had ever tried to explain his attitude to. How young he had been, how stupid and naïve – back then, he had seen only the glorious adventure (even if there were none of the screaming crowds and few crying women when they embarked on _their_ journey, either); the epic Quest.

He would always blame himself, he thought, for so constantly encouraging Yuna in her march toward death. Oh, sure, it had all turned out well in the end, yet … what must she have thought, that he would push her so enthusiastically towards death? Wakka, Lulu, Auron – from experience, no less! – Kimahri, even Rikku had known … so perhaps there would always be some small part of him that refused to forgive them, either. Yet they were no guiltier than any other person in Spira, who stood by the sidelines and cheered the Lady Yuna towards her death.

It was strange, to hold a grudge against the entire world, that at the same time he loved more deeply, that touched him more closely than he had ever been touched in Zanarkand – _his_ Zanarkand. A dichotomy, an impossibility … yet the reality. Darkness and light inextricably intertwined; a confused spiral of hatred and love – but that was Spira, and although he would always work to change Spira for the better, make his paltry effort at strengthening the light, he wouldn't change it for the world.

In a daring move, Datto tossed a Nap Shot Nimrook's way … a dare that paid off, as the Al Bhed goalie – entirely against his will, if the thunderous frown on his face was any indication – drifted off into dreamland. A bit unfair, perhaps – and adding insult to injury, that it was Letty who took the giveaway shot – but, often enough, that was blitz for you. You took your lumps and dished them out in turn; there were few things that would get you a genuine foul in blitzball, and most them involved mortal injury or at the very least dismemberment.

That made the score 2 to 1, now … Eigaar had managed to give the slip to Botta and Jassu, while a decent defender in most cases, had been unable to block the Al Bhed whose shooting ability was pretty damn near his equal – if Eigaar ever managed to learn the Jecht Shot, he'd be unstoppable.

At halftime he made a gratuitous appearance at the break room, then disappeared back to his haven, where he felt closest to the water. Now, after the excitement of the game, it was harder to tune out the noise of the crowd … harder, but not impossible. None of the Aurochs so much as commented at his brief appearance and even quicker departure; they were all long-since used to it. He sometimes wondered if there was a sign painted on him somewhere – '_Don't mess with me right now, I'm concentrated on the blitz'_, or if they were just more sensitive than he gave them credit for.

Perhaps it was simply that, as star player of the Aurochs and former star of the Zanarkand Abes (for, though the wider world remained for the most part ignorant of that particular facet of his life, the Aurochs had been in the know, if not in the belief, since the beginning), he was allowed a certain amount of eccentricity.

Whatever the reason, he was grateful for it … although he usually thrived on human interaction, there was just something about blitzball … something about the water. Sitting there in the water, ignoring the crowd until it was a mere dull roar at the back of his mind; absorbing the peace.

Growing up on a houseboat – or about as close as Zanarkand had come – he had been around water all his life. It was no wonder that he had decided to go for blitzball … even aside from Jecht's impressive legacy, he had never even considered trying to find work that didn't involve the water somehow. Its liquid embrace … when he had that, what else could he possibly need?

All right, so the answer to that one was so obvious as to not even require an answer. He could no more imagine life without Yuna than he could without the water. From day one, she had fascinated him, much as he supposed he must have fascinated her. But slowly it became more than that. He didn't think he could pinpoint when it happened even if he'd tried … when she'd become so much a part of his life that he no longer wanted to live without her.

Macalania … but no, by the time they'd reached Macalania forest, it had long since become a foregone conclusion. That's just when it had broken into the open, when he had finally figured out what had long since become obvious.

"I love you." She had said as he prepared for his final jump. That had almost undone him, the simple acknowledgment of the feelings that had developed between them. He had almost thrown in the towel, said to hell with the fayth and their predictions, and stayed … But it was to spare her that he had jumped. So she wouldn't have to watch him waste away into nothing. His only regret – he wished he'd had the courage to reply to her declaration with his own.

And he thanked his lucky stars every day that he had been given the chance to come back to her; that he had been given the second chance to tell her everything he should have said the first time around.

Halftime over, he dove back into the sphere before the rest of his team had even exited the locker room; saw that Nimrook had beaten him in and smiled, just a little. It was too far and the water blurred his vision enough that he could not tell for sure … but he had a feeling that his fellow blitzer was smiling back.

True to the words of the fayth in Macalania, there had been a new sea for him to swim. He wished, idly, that she was around so he could thank her … but on the flip side, he figured she was happier now where she was than she would have been here, still trapped; a captive soul encased in stone. Also the Kilikan and Djose fayth, as he suspected that they were the ones who remained to dream his new dream. And he had been … he supposed you could call it content, there with the sea and the sun in his idyllic new dream. Content … but lonely.

There had been that moment in time, as he leapt from the ship, where he saw his father, Auron, and another man who could have been no one but Braska. But he soon discovered, in his new dream, that they weren't there. No one was there; no one but the sky, the sea, the sand … and him. It was almost like being back on Besaid; the sunsets were, if possible, as beautiful as the one he and Yuna had shared on the Mi'ihen Highroad, and the sunrises fully the equal of the best he had seen in Zanarkand. Still, he found himself longing for home – for Spira – for Yuna, especially, but for all the rest of his friends as well – with an intensity that even the most beautiful water in the world could barely blunt.

A dream, he did not belong in the real world, yet he was a bit too real to simply disappear. He was no longer truly alive – what sort of meaning does that status have to a dream? – yet neither was he dead, so the Farplane held no welcome for him either. So he was left, alone, in his little dream limbo.

When an old friend came to visit – evidently, even true death and passing on to the Farplane could not wholly stifle the fayth of Bevelle's tendencies towards interference – and asked him if he wished to return to Spira, he jumped at the chance. Before the words were even all the way out of his mouth; long before Bahamut had gotten a chance to explain the downsides, he knew his answer.

So here he was, a golem of dreams and hopes and wishes; although he usually chose to ignore it, he knew that his continuing to remain real and _here_ was by no means a certainty. Yet it was by no means certain that he _would_ disappear, either. He didn't know. Even Bahamut hadn't – the Bevelle fayth had not even been able to promise that he would reappear in Spira the way they planned. Hoped.

Yet … it was also true that there was a chance he'd get run over by a shoopuf tomorrow. Perhaps the future was a bit more uncertain for him than most – but was there anything new about that? He had already experienced so much of life already … it seemed ungrateful to demand any more than the hand he had been given – especially with such a second chance as he had been granted. There were so many things he had wanted … so many things he now had a chance to say. And _that_ was worth anything.

The future was uncertain, but he couldn't bring himself to care. He lived in the present, and in the present … well, he could safely say he was the happiest he had ever been.

When he stepped back out into the real world, they were there waiting. Lulu and Wakka, Arreya waving her tiny arms and chewing on one of Lulu's ever-present braids (something he felt sure she hadn't noticed yet, for he suspected that even being too young to properly understand the ensuing lecture would not spare the girl from her mother's wrath once Lulu _did_ notice); Vidina, the three-year-old a spitting image of his father down to the miniature Aurochs uniform he wore, clinging to his mother's leg and looking upwards with an expression that verged on awe.

Rikku, jumping up and down in excitement at the win – something that he wondered if she would ever tire of, considering that now for the Aurochs winning was essentially a foregone conclusion; even those rare games he didn't play. Paine, the new addition to their group of friends; she was quiet and he didn't know her very well, but what he knew of her, he found he tended to like – and anyone who Yuna called friend, he knew would be worthy of the title.

And, of course, Yuna.

"Good game." Her eyes were bright, her smile even brighter; despite the lingering tranquility, he knew his expression was most likely very nearly a match of her own. The old Yuna would not have smiled so brightly; her eyes would have remained darkened by the ever-present knowledge of her own mortality. Nor would the old Yuna have gotten a mischievous look in said eyes, right before he found himself with arms full.

"I'm still wet!" It was, she knew and he knew and everyone knew, simply a token protest. This was a change he was, he admitted, still adjusting to – but certainly one he wholeheartedly approved of.

"That's all right. I'll just get you back next week." Another change, the idea of his Yuna playing blitzball. Happily, their two teams had yet to cross each other out on the playing field. When eventually they did, he knew it would be hard. He would play his best, no holds barred, and she would do the same – they both knew that.

Yuna had changed. And, while it was not quite so obvious, his long sojourn in the fayth's dream of the sea had changed him as well. Neither was quite the person they had been five years ago – nor had they been the same when reunited as they had been two years before. But he was still himself and Yuna was still Yuna. Sometimes, he had found, that was all that mattered.

During the off season, Yuna continued her sojourns across the face of Spira – while sphere hunters were not in nearly as much demand as they once had been, a definite niche remained, and the famed Gullwings were even more in demand. He, however, had set down roots in the place that would always be home to him – Besaid, the meeting of sky and sea; the perfection that the sea dream had only tried to match. In his spare time – and he had less than he would have thought – he helped Shinra (who had retired from the sphere-hunting business) with his research on how to harness Farplane energy.

He hoped there would be results within their lifetime. He hoped that someday, he would be able to show Yuna a city all lit up at night; one that never slept … he would never be able to show her Zanarkand again, but at least he might be able to give her this. Someday, he hoped they would be able to sit and watch the sun rise over the sea; watch as the lights of the city dimmed as if in deference to the majestic beauty of the sun.

He didn't think there would ever again be anything like the giant suspended columns of water his Zanarkand had possessed, and perhaps that was just as well – it was probably an utterly ridiculous expenditure. Still, as much as he had loved watching the water flow lazily through the air, he would take the beaches of Besaid over those arcing columns any day. Spira was home now.

Zanarkand had left its mark on him; he would never forget the city of light, the city of darkness; the city of water. The waters of Zanarkand would always hold a part of his heart, but Spira held the rest.

He was Spiran now, and you know what?

He wouldn't have had it any other way.

30 March 2005


End file.
